


it takes a lonely heart to keep on living

by Livali



Series: when i dream of dying i never feel so loved [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, an attempt at inspiring warm feelings and catharsis, danganronpa typical themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29918205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livali/pseuds/Livali
Summary: “We should take more walks around here.”“I feel that I have nothing to offer if we should,” Komaeda says dolefully.“Hm,” Hinata presses his lips together and inhales slowly. “A pedagogy on my own terms then—you don’t need to offer anything.”or;In which Hinata Hajime considers the intricacies of loss, and finds a few more pieces along the way.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito
Series: when i dream of dying i never feel so loved [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200005
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	it takes a lonely heart to keep on living

**Author's Note:**

> delivery of a promise made to discord user aran for a komahina piece. i don’t particularly write mlm as i prefer actual mlm to write their content--but a promise is a promise! aran, if you’re reading this, you’re one of my best online friends ever and i treasure you. 
> 
> the timeline is post-canon—and by that i mean post-sdr2. the anime was not considered during the process this was written.

_we have come somehow_

_to a great divide_

_i promise you we'll see the other side_

* * *

Hinata’s victory over Enoshima Junko—a functional excision of his cruelty from her person, from Kamukura Izuru, from his slights—comes with a scorched earth of isolation. He’s won independence, to live free in a world that assigns negative value to his past actions regardless; Kamukura, who he knows as a stranger and an extension who he lost to governesses and conspiracies since inception; finally, by all means, an island with traumatized and comatose teenagers. It is counted a victory, of attrition or otherwise, but he has had so few of them in his life that he’s at a loss of what to do with it.

It smells like antiseptic, sharp and invasive and all that he can parse through as he pulls back towards consciousness. He coughs and his whole body jerks with the movement, pain stabbing out from ribs and shoulders and hands, and his cough peters off into a groan.

He opens his eyes, sticky and gummy, to a bland off-white ceiling. A soft chorus of strange beeps echo off the flat white surface and he shakes his head until the sound sharpens.

“Hinata-kun?”

That’s Sonia’s voice. A bit deeper than expected—but that’s likely due to the age issue brought up during the last trial. Hinata blinks and squints and shakes his head again until he can pinpoint the location of the sound and focus enough for the lumpy form at his side to settle into a blurry image of Soda Kazuichi.

“This is horrible,” Hinata mumbles, squinting hard enough to make his head ache.

“Oh yeah,” Soda’s voice titters off into a chuckle. “Give it a few seconds, and if it doesn’t work, a minute. It was like that for me too, dude.”

There’s a sniff and a shuffle and the blurred edges of Soda move, settling into a surprisingly respectful distance behind what seemed to be Sonia. He glances blankly into space for a few seconds and the soft edges of Soda and Sonia narrow and clarify; Hinata licks at his dry lips and shakes away the long strands blocking his vision, glancing around the room and taking stock.

He’s in a pod. _Figures._ His arms are in traction, disappearing from the elbow down into wires and supports. His whole body aches like he was run over in a highway. Kuzuryu is asleep in a chair on one side of his pod, corkscrewed into a ball of blonde hair and teetering snorts. Owari is beside the yakuza, waving at Hinata with a reassuring grin. 

Sonia is standing on the other side of the pod, fingers twisted together and posture folded, an imperfect trelliswork of sharp edges and square contours; the feeble stance of a noble in court instead of a survivor, eyes focused on the floor.

“Thanks,” Hinata says. His voice comes out as a weak rasp, and he licks at his lips again, dehydrated. He glances over towards Soda meaningfully before turning his eyes back to Sonia. “Are you—is everyone okay?”

“Of course,” Sonia says softly. She sits down on the edge of her chair, hands folded in her lap. “Everyone save for us seems to be asleep in some way. We looked around a bit to confirm that, but we didn't want to leave the room until you woke up.”

“How long?”

He glances at Soda as he turns to a clock on the wall, counting the numbers with trembling fingers. “About six to seven hours. Give or take.”

Hinata groans. “What happened?”

“All five of us woke up in consecutive bouts over the hours before you finally ended the cycle,” Sonia say afters a long moment of contemplation. “But as for everyone else, we do not have enough information to assume anything, so I cannot say when yet.”

_Or if_ is left unsaid.

Hinata blinks. “What about—”

Sonia shakes her head, short and sharp. Her posture stays as it was, her face carefully blank. Hinata stares at her, nausea building in his stomach and pushing against the pain in his chest. _Nanami._

“…oh.”

His entire body shakes and trembles and the straps and buckles of the sling holding his limbs in traction rattle. He yanks at them in a single motion, fingers fumbling uselessly and against Sonia’s robotic movement, the way she is saying “She’s not with us,” in a wobbly voice. Hinata manages to pull himself free from the restraints of the pod and he sits up with a shake of his head.

Nanami really is gone.

(This one, unfortunately, is not counted a victory.)

* * *

The first morning in Jabberwock after everyone is awake, he opens his eyes to a bedroom with a comfort he hasn’t slept in for years to ghosts who still step soft around him and handle him gently, like he’s set to shatter at any moment by a look from any reminder of Enoshima, or Nanami, for that matter; and to Komaeda, young and tall just like Hinata had once been before the tragedy ruined all of them, with nothing to say to him.

The breakfast table, wide for fifteen, is laid for two, the spread non-existent without the presence of Hanamura to signify any sense of familiarity, and Hinata quietly bypasses the sweet fruits that lay uneaten in the middle until then, and his hand pauses in midair.

“Komaeda, do you want to—” he starts, then pauses and begins again. “Do you prefer anything sweet with your breakfast?”

“I do not care for them, Hinata-kun.” Komaeda says, polite and delicate and formal.

“Nor do I,” Hinata says anyway, and something of a smile pulls at his lips. “I guess—will company do for you?”

Komaeda looks at him for a moment; the air around him stale and the words on the tip of his tongue expiring along with it, but he only nods and gives him a friendly smile.

Company will do, then.

And Enoshima is not here, though—Hinata has that reminder and the concrete knowledge of her death and Nanami’s sacrifice on his side to secure his freedom and everyone’s safety.

This one is a victory, and it is his.

* * *

Victorious though he may be, a new wash of loneliness, distinct to the plague of fear and isolation forced on him by the finally sinking fact that he was on a lonesome island, creeps into him slowly. It doesn’t seem to be much compared to the likes of Komaeda, however. While everyone was more forgiving, the man in question doesn’t appear to treat himself the same way, and with either options still making him alone, the two together leave him a pariah. A rich pariah, Hinata notes idly, but a lonely one nonetheless. 

He busies himself with organizing his cottage into something more personal and comfortable from the boyish disarray than time seemed to have left it in, bringing in new books and pictures or shuffling shelves. It’s sincerely a slog of dull work, but it fills his days, and the practice of routine helps to bolster the confidence he’d found weeks earlier, dug out under years of conditioned fragility by Enoshima Junko’s lips and hands and cruelty.

Komaeda crosses his mind every other day; the same way Nanami does. Her strong stride and gentle hands, the way she’d found a strength in everyone that she herself hadn’t known was there, the way her shoulders had trembled under the weight of holding together her classmates in the wake of her immolation. The outside appearances of the cottages is hardly far from each other and every morning when Hinata sets out for his day’s errands, he has to stop himself from directing to her non-existent living quarters.

Grief weighs heavy like loneliness, and Hinata has too much of it to ever see Nanami Chiaki and her resolve, her guilt, her strength, again. 

It aches like a parasite, like a phantom limb, the way her loss had hurt them, but she made her choice long ago, and he will live with it like everyone did, lonely as it may be.

* * *

It’s well into a decent summer after rough patches came to pass and Hinata has, if not the course of life ideal to him, with bonds and friendship to go with the freedom and security everyone had gained, then at least a fleeting life he is content with. He speaks most frequently to the likes of—well—mostly everyone, really; his concern for formality waning as months go by. He sometimes takes to Mioda’s offers to teach him instruments or Pekoyama’s still existing penchant for cute animals, getting to know them as people instead of the silent spectators and instigators to his long humiliation under Enoshima Junko’s heel. 

Jabberwock is sweltering and Hinata is cursing the heat as much as the layers of clothing Komaeda is impossibly wearing. Now that they’re on relatively pleasant terms, he’s unsure of what to do with this in mind and how to use them to attach some form of lasting respectability to Komaeda’s name in his head, and approaching him first had always been the most efficient option. He has two popsicles in his hand and he wants nothing more than to consume them for himself and then proceed to dunk his head in a bucket of ice to deal with the heat and is contemplating doing exactly that when Komaeda himself—smiling and silent and forever unpredictable—clears his throat from a decent distance away.

“Hinata-kun,” he says amiably, and very suddenly he is _not_ a decent distance away. “I think you don’t seem to be doing so well over there.”

“You _think?”_ Hinata huffs. “This heat is impossible. You guys are ridiculous.”

“Which is why a lot of us are swimming at the beach, Hinata-kun. I think it’d bode well for you if you did use your eyes correctly,” Komaeda says loftily, and Hinata, at a loss for anything else to say, offers one of his popsicles without meaning to.

“Hinata-kun?”

“If you don’t want it I’ll eat it myself,” Hinata says amusedly, not really planning to acknowledge where the impulse came from. “I was planning to anyway, but you’re here.”

“Well,” Komaeda drawls. It’s familiar, that voice, though there’s no dip of his eyes or chin in any illusion of disrespect or hostility like when he first got to know him, his gaze holding steady and sharp with Hinata’s. “You’re not bad, Hinata-kun.”

“I swear that almost sounded like a ‘thank you’,” Hinata grumbles, the popsicle melting around his mouth as Komaeda takes away his share.

Hinata winds the hand behind his back more tightly, still at a loss of how to speak to Komaeda, who’s standing easily in his presence, one of the sharpest reminders of everything Hinata had thought about in the past months. Questions build in his chest and bubble upward, ready to burst forth, but he holds them in with a careful clench of his teeth together. Komaeda came to him first, for some definitive purpose, and it is almost certainly not to hear Hinata speak to his grief.

“It’s quite the stir I’ve caused.” One corner of Komaeda’s mouth lifts up, dry and sure, and Hinata’s not sure why, but his stomach clenches at the sight. “I know you want to ask about my feelings on the fifth trial, Hinata-kun. You’re quite literally asking the question with your face and not your mouth. It’s rather impressive, if not comical.”

Hinata blinks dumbly at him.

Komaeda raises an eyebrow at him and a somewhat entertained smile grows on his face as he halves the distance between them again.

“Komaeda?” Hinata asks, already cataloguing what he can offer in exchange for well—whatever he was looking for in Komaeda; the list begins and ends with his time, his only other function as an entrance to everyday conversation sacrificed already to his independence.

“Truthfully, I came here to thank you, Hinata-kun.” Komaeda steps closer still, enough that the diameter of his shorts encroaches on Hinata’s, carrying the familiar charm that he seemed to have despite his mouth. Komaeda smiles, simultaneously reserved and enigmatic, and Hinata wavers because at this proximity he can focus on little more than the way that he knows how to breathe.

“Thank me?”

“You always approach me more than others tend to,” he says ruefully. “I don’t know why you do so—considering how I remember treating you—but it did get me out of my shell a bit. I treasured your company, even for the likes of me.”

“Hey, don’t say that.” Hinata says and elbows Komaeda gently. “We’re all in the same boat here, and you don’t have to knock yourself down a peg when talking to everyone here.”

“I don’t have to indeed,” Komaeda says breezily, and the smile on his lips plays contrary to every shred of guilt threaded throughout Hinata.

“Yeah,” he rolls his eyes. “All of us are in this together—I’m beginning to sound like Nidai and that’s weird but—you know—whatever. I’ll do what it takes to make sure all of us see the end, even if I have to carry you there or something.”

Komaeda laughs, playful and easy, and Hinata concentrates on not letting the sound distract him no matter how much it does in reality. “I can see you doing something silly such as that, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda says quietly. “Nanami-san really was a positive influence on you.”

“ _Everyone_ , actually,” he corrects with a sad smile. “And… yeah. She was.”

“Do you miss her, Hinata-kun?” Komaeda tilts his head diplomatically, even as his smile remains unchanged and calm. “For she remained friendly in the end despite the circumstances, and I cannot imagine anyone else not wishing to see her again.”

“Isn’t that pretty much how grief works?” Hinata asks with a snort, but he steps back a bit, hating the way his voice wavers and his chest aches in such proximity to Komaeda. “What game are you playing though, Komaeda? If you demand recompense for something then what is it—”

“Hinata-kun,” Komaeda says with a shake of his head, soft and sad, his smile finally fading alongside the last trappings of formality between them. He reaches out, hand open and careful and unthreatening, giving Hinata the opportunity to reject it; he freezes and holds tense under the soft touch of Komaeda’s fingertips to his clenched hands. “I didn’t come in jest or with malignant intentions, but because I owe you your time and I genuinely want to compensate for it.”

His other hand, the prosthetic, joins the first, holding soft and easy to Hinata’s, and the ghostly ache of Hinata’s guilt pacifies under the delicate touch.

“Wait,” Hinata stares right up at him. “Are you saying you want to be friends? Like friends-friends?”

“Like friends-friends, Hinata-kun.” Komaeda parrots amusedly. His hands tighten around Hinata’s, unfamiliar but warm, and Hinata wavers under the weight of haphazardry and confusion and the oppressive, godforsaken heat of the summer that’s leaving him oddly lightheaded as much as Komaeda’s presence is. “I won't deny I was in some state of arrogance for a spell, but it’s different now. You are… more or less equal to everyone. I have swallowed that pill now. In good conscience, I feel sickened to have found some offense in that.”

“That’s nice.” Hinata grumbles, and pulls his hand free from Komaeda’s, even if for some strange reason he still wants to stay close, pride be damned. “Who in good conscience would not take offense?”

Komaeda chuckles, his shoulders shaking under the weight of Hinata’s subtle jab, and he steps back to give him more space and sets to wandering the edge of the beach lazily. Hinata follows him a few steps behind, and Komaeda fills the silence easily, speaking of the struggles of deteriorating health issues and the ways in which he finds hobbies around the island; his voice settles warm over Hinata’s sternum, offering comfort that he doesn’t want to enjoy as much as he does, and he sits carefully down onto the sand and lets his eyes slide shut as he listens mindlessly.

“Hinata-kun?”

The call draws his eyes open and to where Komaeda stands by the shoreline, an obvious and embarrassed flush spreading up his neck. 

“I do not mean to disturb, I just realized something and—” Komaeda puts a hand to his chin in thought. “I just never apologized outright, it seems.”

“…It kind of feels redundant at this point. I think,” Hinata says after a long moment. “You’re pretty nice company if you’re not bullying me.”

“Indeed, Hinata-kun. Indeed.” Komaeda sucks in a breath and appears to hold back a laugh. “And it is not your crime to look back on, it is mine.”

“I guess,” he smiles, wry and somewhat affectionate, and he feels his hand twitch, longing for some driftwood to clutch on to. “But I don’t think you’re like, entirely responsible for the damages it perpetuated, on me or anyone else. Enoshima is.”

“There is kindness in your words.” Komaeda crouches next to him and looks forward. “One that I fear I have yet to earn.”

“Komaeda.” His voice surprisingly creaks with some kind of worry, and he hears Komaeda breathe in deep. “You _were_ kind of strong towards me and it’s still somewhat stuck with me but—there’s a difference. You kind of powered me on in a way. It’s forgiveness and understanding, not kindness.” His hand reaches out to Komaeda’s and squeezes it, he smiles wryly, casting his eyes down towards the grip he has. “And a bit of selfishness, if you asked me. I think I still want to be your friend.”

He pulls at Komaeda’s prosthetic gently, turning his hand upward and pulling inappropriately close, by some defunct social standard that’s possessed Hinata even after being certain that he has minimal knowledge of it in the first place, and presses a kiss to the center of his palm. Komaeda seems to let out a breath without meaning to, loud and strained and disappearing into the sea around them.

Hinata grins at him awkwardly and takes his time to pull away and stand, stepping back politely, a picture of platonic and social nicety. He drops his head minutely in some bout of thoughtfulness and looks back up with a smile.

“We should take more walks around here.”

“I feel that I have nothing to offer if we should,” Komaeda says dolefully.

“Hm,” Hinata presses his lips together and inhales slowly. “A pedagogy on my own terms then—you don’t need to offer anything."

“I… don’t think I would be able turn you away,” Komaeda says, and Hinata thinks _yes, maybe you don’t._ Because he’s never had the penultimate ability to turn Komaeda away either, any more than he’s had the ability to disappoint him. He coughs and looks away, clinging as best he can to his remaining propriety, the distance it offers a crutch against the ache in his chest and the way his whole body reacts to Komaeda’s presence in his space. 

“Heh—yeah. That’s cool then.”

It surprises him enough that Komaeda laughs aloud, which in turn surprises Hinata even more, and draws a smile from him once they’ve settled down. There’s a comfort to his re-entry to Hinata’s life, the same way it had soothed Nanami’s exit, his quiet inflexibility in the face of Hinata’s grief warm and easy, a return to the trust that had grown between them so many months ago.

Even at the height of it all, with Enoshima closing in on Nanami and using everyone as a whipping post to punish their rebellion, when fear and uncertainty had dominated his life more than it ever had, the confidence and spite Komaeda inspired in him had offered a balm against the war they’d found themselves in. The familiar comfort that Komaeda’s presence now offers is intoxicating, almost enough to outweigh the overwhelming guilt that Hinata slogs through every day, and he reminds himself of his failures and the need to keep his worth distance from himself, and—

“Thanks then, Komaeda.” Hinata says finally. “For your time.” 

A mistake, to be sure, one that will probably appeal to Komaeda’s strange and fluctuating ego, but one he isn’t yet ready to give up on. He backpedals almost immediately, as soon as one corner of Komaeda’s mouth lifts at the admission.

“I—uh,” Hinata says brilliantly. “I guess this talk was pretty uplifting and you were surprisingly being so civil so…” He tilts his head back to the direction of the dorms. “Yeah, thanks, or whatever—”

“Hinata-kun, you’re rambling. It’s embarrassing.” Komaeda interrupts with a mild arch to his eyebrows. An empty ache spreads through Hinata’s stomach and up into his chest, and he almost slumps into the ground at the alien sensation, instead opting to swallow the lump in his throat to steady himself against the force that is Komaeda Nagito. “But you’re welcome, and… thank you, too.”

He decides against it in his head, but he pulls Komaeda into a hug anyways. It’s awkward and one-armed and probably mortifying, but he still squeezes tight for a long moment and breathes in deeply. He smells like the summer and not at all like the concrete dust and medicine and sweat that’s been following him all afternoon. “...yeah. See you around.”

He’s walking away before Komaeda can formulate a response. Being lonely is built into his genetic code—be it unintentional and unprecedented, like Kamukura, or in a deliberate descent into sacrifice, like Nanami—but not yet. He can settle for this, for Komaeda, for a friend who was lonely, too.

He was lonely, but things don’t need to stay the same. 

(And this one, fortunately, counts as a victory.)


End file.
